BLOG: Nature Towns and Cities – a call for collective action
By Graham Duxbury, Groundwork’s UK Chief Executive
Conferences come and conferences go, but last week’s Nature Towns and Cities event felt different. It was exceptional in three ways.
Firstly, sheer numbers – more than 1,000 people registered with several hundred moving around the online event space on the day. Secondly, the passion and knowledge on show – the chat was a blizzard of ideas, examples and exhortations for us to keep going, and do more. Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly for me, it was the breadth of the contributions, with people from across the public, private and voluntary sectors effectively rallying behind the same set of messages – environmental groups, local authorities, funders, academics, developers.
Although the perspectives were different, the conclusions were consistent. Greening our towns and cities and ensuring more people are able to access nature close to home, particularly those who currently miss out, is a classic no brainer. Health benefits are well understood, but we also heard that green spaces build pride and cohesion in an area and are one of our best defences against the impacts of climate change, impacts which are felt first and worst by those who have least. As one speaker succinctly put it, investing in green space is not a luxury but one of the most cost-effective ways of addressing disadvantage and injustice.
As well as agreeing on the many benefits and advantages, the vast majority of people speaking or sharing views at the event also agreed on the biggest challenge. The elephant in the room was hard to miss – lack of money. We all know the score – local authority budgets have been in dramatic decline for more than a decade, parks and green spaces aren’t big winners when it comes to fundraising (as the public understandably think they should be paid for through their taxes), and new financial mechanisms such as biodiversity net gain don’t (yet) work for smaller urban spaces.
Unless the Chancellor surprises us all in this week’s spending review, the underlying funding situation isn’t going to change massively any time soon. But this isn’t a counsel of despair. What Nature Towns and Cities shows is that this isn’t a small vocal lobby – the aim of making the open spaces we share more sustainable, more attractive, more accessible and more climate-proof is a whole of society endeavour with broad-based support from both the public and institutions.
What’s more, there is money in the system that could be used to make progress. The NHS is likely to emerge from the spending review with an increased settlement. We know new health money can easily be swallowed up by capital programmes and workforce shortages, but there are growing calls from within the service to think more laterally about health creation and we now have solid evidence about the health impact of green social prescribing. As the Government commits to speeding up housebuilding, there is a real need and opportunity for local authorities to ensure development contributes to green infrastructure plans rather than undermining them, and a range of new tools to make this happen .
Beyond government we expect to hear more soon about how the £175m Community Wealth Fund will be distributed by the National Lottery Community Fund . Investing in building the capacity of local communities to improve and manage green spaces will not only improve quality of life now but help to create assets that can transform the fortunes of an area in the long term. This is a message we also hope to see coming through the work of the Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods, whose recommendations for a major investment in ‘mission critical neighbourhoods’ are gaining traction with government .
Making the most of this context means creatively weaving together strands of money from many different sources but also ensuring nature has a seat at the table when other spending decisions are being made. The size, breadth and strategic influence of the speakers and delegates at last week’s conference give me confidence we can make progress.
Notes to editors
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About Groundwork
Groundwork is a federation of charities with a collective mission to take practical action to create a fair and green future in which people, places, and nature thrive. We support communities and businesses to build capacity and resilience in order to tackle hardship, achieve a just transition to net-zero and help nature recover in a way that reduces inequality and leads to healthier, happier lives for all: www.groundwork.org.uk